Control
by LustSecret4
Summary: Elena finally decides to take control of her life - choosing the person she knows she should be with.  But what if Stefan isn't willing to step out of the way?  Rated M for later chapters..
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Elena has never been able to take control of her life before – not really. Someone is always making her decisions for her, ostensibly for her safety. But this time, this night, she knows what she wants. She knows that the only person who makes her feel safe is the person she needs to be with.

When she is apart from him, she misses him, yearns to be close to him. She can't count the number of times that day alone, she caught herself scanning the passing crowds at school for that face, those eyes. The eyes that were so empty when she first met him, so cold. Now they are her favorite vision. She closes her eyes and sees them, sees him, hears his voice.

The voice that is so velvety smooth and comforting, every other voice seems drowned out by it. She knows her friends, her family, her loved ones would do anything for her – that much is clear by now. But she also knows the only time she really feels safe is when she is with him. With Damon. Near him, with him, in his arms.

She knows it's wrong to fantasize about her boyfriend's brother. But with the time apart, and the way Stefan has been acting lately – under Klaus' compulsion – she begins to wonder if he still holds that romantic title. Damon is who she longs for. For safety, for comfort, for everything.

"_I promise you, I will never leave you again."_

She'll never forget those words, that moment. That moment when she was sure of his promise. Surer of that than anything else in her life. He would be there for her, because she needs him. But because he needs her too. How badly Elena had wanted to curl up into Damon, be held in his strong arms, at that moment. But Stefan had returned, reminding her of what Damon was wordlessly promising to protect her from.

And then, after telling Damon her plan to lock Stefan up, that intimate, searing moment when he described to her the more physical aspect of how to get to a vampire's heart. He had to have heard it – her own heart, beating erratically as he held her to him, running his silky, gentle fingers down her back. The way her heart beats every time he is near. He had to have felt the way her body reacts to his touch – his fingers leaving a hot trail on her skin, even at the slightest touch.

She is embarrassed to think of the way she has, so many nights, touched herself to the thought of him. Imagining his hands on her, all over her, pleasuring her. Whether after an unsatisfying night with Stefan before his disappearance or simply when alone, she can't stop thinking about him. About the way he makes her feel. His experience in the bedroom is a given, but her desire for him in that way is further fueled by the knowledge that he wants her too. To have, to hold, to be with on a deeper level than just sexually. Above all else, he makes her feel safe, but alive.

"_No one is going to hurt you, Elena. Especially not my brother."_

The way he made her feel in that moment, she will never forget. She knows how he feels about her – he has made it abundantly clear. But tonight, seeing him flirt with Rebekah, she felt something she is not used to feeling. Jealous.

Her relationship experience has been limited. First with Matt, then with Stefan. Dating Matt seemed like a no-brainer – he was a logical choice. Dating Stefan was intense, but not passionate. She realizes now that the dramatic moments defined their relationship. She could count on one hand the number of times she had been intimate with Stefan. And she could count on fewer fingers the number of times he had been able to truly satisfy her.

The person who used to be the dangerous choice, the one to be scared of, is the person she now seeks the most. She can't deny her feelings for him any longer. She realizes this as she arrives home with Alaric, after another chaotic, horrifying night in Mystic Falls. She decides, then and there, that tomorrow, she will face her feelings for Damon. Feelings she has denied, avoided, tortured herself over for so long. She ponders how she'll tell him as she washes her face, brushes her hair, puts on her pajamas, and climbs into her bed. She drifts to sleep, wondering if she'll have the resolve to face the man she has developed such strong feelings for in the morning.

_She is writing under Stefan's body. Pinned down on his plain white bed in that wood-paneled room she used to take such comfort in. His hands are all over her – she is begging him to stop. He is hurting her, being too forceful, taking no heed of her fragility under his vampiric strength. She is crying, sobbing, lashing out at him with every appendage she has. _

"_Please, please, please stop. You're hurting me" She sobs_

_He either fails to hear her, feel her, or notice her pleas. He pounds into her with such force she is afraid she will simply break. She has never felt such pain. As she opens her eyes and sees his monstrous face, however, she realizes he is iignoring her. He has truly lost his humanity. She has the fleeting thought that she has never looked into the eyes of a vampire whose fangs have descended and who is ready to attack. This feeling evaporates as those black eyes, ringed with veins, come toward her face at a terrifying speed. She screams, kicks, scratches, but it is no use._

She awakens with a start – sitting up in bed, gasping for air, drawing her bedsheets around herself. That's when she feels it – a cold hand on her shoulder and even colder breath on her back. Too cold to be human, too quick to be comforting…


	2. Please

**Chapter 2**

...that breath, that smell – she knows them both so well. Images from her dream and from Stefan's recent attack blur at a lightning pace through her mind, as she realizes it is her undead nightmare next to her in bed. In an instant, she is out of bed, but he is quicker. He has her pinned against the bedroom door before she even has a chance.

She is awake, alert, but unable to process what has happened quickly enough. He has forgotten, or ignored, how fragile she is as his hands grip her forearms, turning her roughly back to him. He turns on her bedroom light, staring straight into her eyes.

The light and love that used to be ever-present there are completely gone. She feels as though she is looking into an abyss – empty, emotionless, dangerous.

She opens her mouth to scream, but he slaps her, hard, across her cheek, before covering her mouth with his hand.

"Something the matter, Elena? This isn't how we used to greet each other after sleep," he playfully whispers in her ear.

A silent sob racks her body, as he releases her arms, running his hands down her sides. Everything about him is different now – his touch is not soft, gentle, loving. It is rough and possessive. She can't forget the dream, and wonders how long Stefan has been in her room that night. Was the dream created by him? Was he in her mind, taking sick pleasure in making her so fearful, all the while fulfilling Klaus' task of "protecting" her?

"Are you going to ask me to 'please, please, please stop'?" he taunts her, confirming that even if he didn't fabricate the dream in her mind, he was watching it unfold.

"You pathetic little girl. I own you. I can come and go from this house whenever I please. And don't try to scream again - who's around to stop me, after all? Certainly not your parents, or your aunt. And Ric? Jeremy? Don't stand a chance. So why bother? "

It is as he aggressively licks up her neck and grinds himself into her lower half that she begins to fear that her dream is about to come true.

"What are you doing here?" she manages to ask – softly, almost a whisper.

"I think you know, otherwise your heart wouldn't be beating so quickly…" comes the reply.

She is tired, so tired, and realizes that fighting this is impossible. Still, she tries to untangle herself from his grasp, but he has her pinned so roughly, so intimately against the door that she can barely move. Her small hands punching at his chest, trying to push him off of her, seem to provoke him more.

"Mmm, you know how I like it when you get rough with me," he growls, slipping his hand into the waistband of her underwear and rubbing it roughly against her most sensitive feminine parts.

There is nothing pleasurable about this experience for Elena, and she begins to sob in earnest, still fighting as hard as possible against him. She closes her eyes, wishing that somehow, she could communicate to Damon that she needs help, but she knows it is impossible.

Even with the training she has been doing with Alaric, she knows she is no match for Stefan. As she watches his eyes darken and feels the change taking place within him, she closes her eyes, bracing herself for the penetration of his fangs against her neck…


	3. Awake

Thanks for the positive feedback, you guys! I really appreciate your reviews. And I promise to get to the good stuff (Damon/Elena, duh) soon soon!

**Chapter 3**

…the pain she feels hits hard. This time, Stefan is not being compelled by Klaus to drink from her – he is doing it on his own. It is in this moment that Elena realizes he has fully rounded the corner and given in to his dark side. She can feel the life being pulled out of her, through that point in her neck, where he sucks so harshly, fiercely, with wild abandon. She does her best to fight him off, still fully aware that she is no match for him. She feels herself weaken, slumping against the wall, body pliable in Stefan's hands.

Just as her eyes begin to drift closed, she sees a blur of black and feels her body slide down the wall to the floor, as Stefan is pulled from her.

-hours later –

She wakes up to a pounding in her head. She suddenly remembers what happened and sits bolt upright in the large bed she is in. Looking frantically around her, she realizes she doesn't recognize the room, the bed, anything. Her mind flies to the worst-case scenario – Stefan has taken her somewhere, where no one will find her.

She looks around the room cautiously before gingerly stepping out of bed. Tiptoe-ing across the wooden floor, Elena sees herself in a mirror on the wall, noticing for the first time what she is wearing – a black t-shirt that is way too big for her, obviously belonging to a man. "Stefan," she gasps aloud. Realizing that she may only have moments before her captor re-enters the room to look for her, she pries open the door as quietly as possible.

Elena is startled to feel her feet come into quick contact with something hard on the floor, below eye-level, which explains how she didn't see it at first. She gasps and looks down, noticing what she has kicked – a body. A large body, with black hair, and…no shirt? Even turned away from her, she knows that this is not her nightmare - this is exactly who she needs right now. She'd know that muscled back, those sculpted shoulders, anywhere. "He's sleeping outside the door?" she wonders.

"Damon?" she asks quietly, as she crouches down next to him.

The sound of her gentle, timid voice is enough to wake him from even the deepest sleep. He is on his feet immediately, gently but firmly pushing her back into the room she has just exited. She notices his expression – all at once worried, angry, tired.

"Damon, where am I? What happened? Stefan, he...", she starts, before he puts a finger over her mouth, silencing her. He gestures toward the bed, but his usual charm and eyebrow twitch when in the vicinity of such a temptation are missing. Elena notices just how tired, how awful, she feels, right then. She looks at Damon for some sort of comfort, but his back is turned and he is walking back toward the door through which they have just come.

"Please, please don't leave me!", she pleads, beginning to cry at the thought of being left alone in this strange room.

He doesn't answer, merely locking the door and turning back to her, flashing the comforting smile she has grown so fond of, the one he reserves for use with just her. But when he flashes behind her, placing his hand on her lower back to guide her back to the bed, she shudders at the contact. The reaction is involuntary, but he notices it, backing away infinitesimally and swiftly.

She climbs back into the bed and sighs.

"I'm sorry, Damon", she says. He gives her a look that says she has nothing to be sorry about, and watches her closely as he sits on the opposite end of the bed – giving her the space she seems to need.

It is only then that Elena notices that along with changing her clothes, someone has bandaged the wound on her neck, which is still throbbing. She knows it must have been Damon who saved her, and she wonders how she ever questioned the goodness in the man sitting before her, looking into the distance of the dark room. He promised that no one would hurt her again, and he had upheld that promise –saving her from the demon that Stefan has become.

He is sitting close enough on the bed that she can reach out and touch his arm, which she does now, tentatively. He turns, lightning fast, to her, looking straight at her for the first time. It is still dark outside and the lights are not on – still night, she thinks. He moves slightly closer to her on the bed, holding her hand in his, never taking his eyes from hers.

"Elena, I want you to understand what happened. Stefan attacked you. I wasn't able to get there quickly enough. I should have never left you alone. I am so sorry. I have let you down so many times…", he says quietly.

She looks up at Damon, who is again, looking anywhere but at her.

"You're at the Boarding House. You've never been in this wing of the house, because we don't usually use these rooms. Bonnie has been here to check on you, but it…didn't look good for a while. We were afraid that my blood wouldn't be enough to heal you. I thought I was going to lose you. You've been here in this room for days. The possibility of you dying with my blood in your system, when I know that is not what you want…I couldn't take that choice away from you. Not again."

Elena's eyes started to water at this – he really had changed. Everything she had been feeling before Stefan's attack came slamming through her mind like a freight train. This man, this one, next to her, is the man she loves. How could she not have seen it before? Or rather, how had she been able to hide it?

Is she physically hurt? Yes, of course. But her heart has never felt fuller. She tries to slide closer to Damon on the bed, thinking that being near him now is all she needs. He senses her movement, and puts out his hand to stop her. Her brows furrow.

"I promise, he won't come anywhere near you. I've been able to keep him away from you. But he's here. Or at least he was." At this, he withdraws his hand, again avoiding her searching eyes, thinking how he has let her down.

She wonders why he is recoiling from her so much, and begins to feel embarrassed. He is protecting her, staying here with her out of pity. Elena immediately rethinks telling him what she feels for him – the depths of her emotions for this centuries-old vampire whom she has grown to love. She turns from him in the bed and crawls back under the covers, noting again how sore her whole body is.

For what seems like forever, she pretends to sleep. All the while thinking about the problems at hand: Stefan is possibly downstairs, hungry for her blood, ready to attack. He has proven that he is past the point of no return, and she shudders at the thought. The man she once would have done anything to protect, to be with, is now the person she fears the most.

She hears his words echo in her head, _"I own you…who's around to stop me, after all?" _and shivers at the memory, as a tear slips down her cheek. Before long, she is crying quietly, pulling herself into a ball under the thin sheet to comfort herself. The man she once loved, and the man she does love, are bloodthirsty, and repulsed by her, respectively. She is being pitied – no more, no less.

She closes her eyes and for the first time in her life, actually wishes that she could disappear. Damon watches the petite girl for whom his heart swells, and feels the remorse he has been wrestling for days. Watching her slip into unconsciousness that night in her room was almost enough to break his undead heart. He had never before been so worried in his existence.

He can't lose her. He can't stand to see her hurt – physically, or otherwise. This is what he's thinking as he escapes his silent reverie and notices the emotional breakdown wracking her small frame in the bed beside him. No more words tonight, he thinks, as he slowly slides closer to her in the bed. He feels her muscles tighten beneath the sheets, suspecting that her reaction to anyone's proximity will be heightened for a while, and understanding why that is the case.

Once he senses that her heartbeat has relaxed, he smoothly wraps an arm around her waist, resting it gently, and hoping she will not shy from his touch. Quite the opposite, Elena laces her fingers through Damon's, snuggles her body closer to his strong frame, and falls into a deep sleep.

Damon spends that night the same as so many nights before – simply listening to the calm of her breaths, while still straining to hear any approaching danger to the woman he loves. The woman who, he has come to realize, even just today, in these brief moments spent together since she came-to, just might love him back.

At that thought, Damon kisses her shoulder, closes his eyes and smiles.


End file.
